Word: verdis
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Giulini conducts the masterpiece of Verdi...
Every decibel was earned. The production of Verdi's Falstaff by the Los Angeles Philharmonic-cosponsored...
This, of course, is nonsense. Usually what the composer puts down on paper is what he had in mind. True, opera librettos have occasionally been censored (as was Verdi's Rigoletto), and sometimes the exigencies of performance required certain concessions in the music itself. Carmen, a failure when it was first performed at the Opéra Comique in 1875, was outfitted after Bizet's death with recitatives by Ernest Guiraud to replace its original spoken dialogue. But this did not change the essential character of the composer's conception...
...foremost lyric tenor, Pavarotti in recent years has been moving into the heavier spin to repertory, forsaking the Lord Arthur Talbots and Tonios of Bellini and Donizetti for roles that call for weightier, more declamatory singing-Enzo in Ponchielli's La Gioconda, for example, and Riccardo in Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera. In doing so, however, Pavarotti has sacrificed much of his freshness and lyric bloom...
Last week the only "money" note for the tenor in Aida-the high B-flat at the end of Celeste Aida-was rough and ragged, belted out with a desperate fortissimo instead of the more difficult pianissimo that Verdi called for in the score. Elsewhere, Pavarotti's eyes clung to the safety of the prompter's box and the conductor's baton, leaving most of the acting to Soprano Margaret Price (battling a bronchial infection but singing well nonetheless) and Stefania Toczyska, a sultry Polish mezzo and a star of the future, whose Amneris blazed with passionate...